25 Definitively Best Movies EVER (According To Critics AND Fans)

5. Rear Window (1954)

Score: 93

The true mark of success in art is imitation and the scene in which Jimmy Stewart's LB Jefferies watches his neighbour closing in on his accomplice Lisa in Rear Window has been so widely redone that it's now one of those scenes that exists on a special list of Essential Movie Moments.

This was Hitchcock at his most suspenseful, marooning the audience helplessly with Jeff in his apartment thanks to his leg injury and then forcing him to watch the events. It's the most astute film-making by any director seeking to make their audience anxious and it's the most shining example of proof that Hitchcock absolutely understood his audience and how to manipulate them.

Stewart is typically excellent, of course, and the story is so simple and so in-tune with fundamental human compulsions like spying on neighbours that it's completely compelling.

Rotten Tomatoes: 100 Audience: 95 IMDB: 85 Letterboxd: 87 Metascore: 100